Key takeaways:

1. Consistent marketing builds the same kind of trust advisors ask clients to have in a long-term financial plan.
2. Your brand voice should feel familiar across every touchpoint, from social media to your website to email.
3. Sporadic marketing gives competitors room to become memorable. Showing up regularly keeps your firm in the conversation.

When Marketing Your Firm, Do You Follow Your Own Advice About Consistency?   

You’d be hard-pressed to find a financial advisor who doesn’t talk about consistency as a long-term strategy for building wealth.  

Disciplined investing. Setting long-term goals. Sticking to the plan even when gains aren’t immediate.  

If consistency is the secret to financial-planning success, shouldn’t it also apply to your marketing?  

Of course it should.  

When you think about it, the financial planning services you provide have a lot of similarities to the marketing services we provide:  

• • You develop long-term, growth strategies for your clients – ditto.  

• • You strive to understand your clients’ needs and goals – ditto. 

• • You rely on market research to help your clients make informed decisions – ditto. 

And there’s another similarity: as you develop client relationships built on trust, you need to manage their unrealistic expectations of quick gains – ditto.  

One of our biggest challenges is explaining to our advisors that successful marketing is a lot like compounding interest. Every piece of content, every email and every social media post adds to the cumulative total. Skip months of marketing and the compounding stops. Stay consistent and the returns continue to grow over time.  

Now, be honest, how many times have you made a similar point about consistency to your financial clients? Isn’t it time to start taking your own advice?  

Of course it is.   

Consistency In Marketing: The Rule of Seven 

The Rule of Seven is a long-standing marketing strategy built on the principle that a prospect has to see your messaging at least seven times before they can recall your brand. It makes sense because the human brain is wired to retain information through consistent repetition.  

Since we’re bombarded with marketing messages across multiple channels, you need to consistently apply the Rule of Seven to every touch point. From social media and email campaigns, to blogs and newsletters, when you consistently connect with your target market it keeps your name front of mind.  

It’s important to remember that you’re asking prospects to trust you with their financial future. Even when they can recall your name, their decision timeline will still be considerably longer than when they decide to buy a cell phone or TV.  

Your Brand Voice Needs To Be Consistent, Too 

Imagine having a conversation with someone and their communication style suddenly changes in the middle of your discussion. At the very least, it would be off-putting. Worst case scenario, you might avoid speaking with them at all in the future. 

Think about marketing as an ongoing conversation with potential and existing clients. If your messaging isn’t consistent in tone and style, it can create confusion and diminish trust.  

Let’s say you’ve developed a casual, conversational style on social media that’s proving to attract followers. If they click on your website only to find a stream of financial jargon that sounds like an infomercial, it can throw up a red flag.  

Even global brands like Apple® maintain a consistent voice across multiple media channels. Apple® is known for its direct, fact-based, confident tone throughout its marketing campaigns. If the company suddenly started using buzzwords like unique, innovative and state-of-the-art, it would create a major disconnect with their loyal customers.  

Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to repeat the same exact messaging across all marketing touch points. It simply means you need to stay consistent in what you say and how you say it to deepen trust and loyalty. 

Consistent Marketing On Social Media   

For years, studies have shown that friends and family are a top resource for people seeking financial advice. This is why client referrals remain a crucial strategy for growing your practice. At its core, a client referral is compelling because it provides positive word-of-mouth from a trusted source. Then again, the power of positive word-of-mouth applies to another source of information: social media.        

A survey conducted by Bankrate indicates an impressive 30% of Americans seeking financial advice use social media as their top resource.* If you’ve neglected marketing your services on the major social platforms, you’re essentially invisible to a significant number of potential clients.   

The social media platforms that work well for financial advisors include: 

• • LinkedIn – helps build your professional credibility through your posts and member profile   

• • Facebook – provides a way to engage in a more casual way with local markets    

• • Instagram – offers an opportunity to connect with younger investors 

Messaging on social media is different than, let’s say, your website or email campaigns. It’s rarely about selling and more about authentic storytelling that provides educational information. It also requires consistently showing up to engage with your audience to establish yourself as a trusted source for financial advice.  

Before you jump into the deep end of marketing on social media, it’s important to develop a viable content strategy and a schedule. Without these must-haves, most social media algorithms will not promote your content to a wide audience.  

Search engines also reward consistent marketing. When you publish quality content on a regular schedule across multiple channels, it helps boost your SEO and improve your ranking. This is why successful marketing is never one and done.  

Let’s face it – the services you offer are virtually identical to those of other advisors. How do you differentiate yourself? The short answer: consistent marketing. Without it, you allow your competitors to establish their brand in the minds of prospects. With it, you can gain and maintain significant market share.  

Be patient… it’s worth it   

While sporadic campaigns fade from memory, a consistent marketing strategy gives you the competitive advantage when you stick to the plan long enough to see results. As in life, when it comes to marketing your financial services, patience is not only a virtue, it’s a requirement. 

*https://www.bankrate.com/investing/financial-advisors/americans-financial-advice-top-place/